Bits and pieces of my life. I am a lifelong Christian. I have been married for over 39 years to Stan. No children. We have 3 Italian Greyhounds: Persephone, Dresden & Capodimonte and a calico cat named Binky. We have 9 nieces/nephews and 9 grandnieces/nephews whom we love. My hobbies are genealogy, reading, digital scrapbooking, history, dogs, homemaking. This is a personal blog and not a business. I share what interests me and I am not selling anything or making a profit.

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..........Contact me at Mom25dogs@gmail.com.........

Friday, July 04, 2008

Stan decided to smoke some meats for our family 4th of July picnic. He invited all the family and our friends, Ken and Diane. Luke came home from Shaw AFB and his fiance, Hannah, came. Melinda and I spent the afternoon together and she stayed over for the fun. Ronnie, Kenny, Kenny's son, Evans came. We had a good time. We sent out for pizzas for supper.

Stan used Luke's grill. He adapted it with a side door in order to be able to put wood in it. Dad brought over some dried oak and some fresh Bradford pear. The dried oak kept the fire going and the green pear wood kept it smoking. Stan bought some chickens to make smoked Beer Can Chicken and some Boston Butts. He rubbed the chicken and Boston butts with a "butt rub". Our friend, Ken, brought some of his venison and some Alaska salmon. He put the same rub on them and added them to the grill.

We all sat around talking and laughing from 5:30pm until about 11:00pm. Then everyone dribbled home except for Stan and Luke. Stan and Luke stayed up until about 3:00am to finish smoking and then cleaning up.

We have the meat ready for today's Independence Day family picnic!

From left to right -> Ken, Diane, Melinda, Stan

Ken and Diane

Ronnie

Ken and Stan

Melinda

Luke

From Left to Right ->Ken, Diane, Ronnie, Luke, Melinda, Stan, Kenny and Evans

Kenny

So like Luke! A daredevil with his feet on the ground!

Evans

Ronnie

Evans

Ronnie and Kenny

Evans keeping in touch with his fiance, Chelsea.

Kenny with his eldest son, Evans

Ken had to buy some bottle rockets and Stan had to set them off! Two middle aged kids! Stan loves anything that explodes and has flame! LOL!

Put the 2 tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of your crock and spread it around. If you are using thighs or fattier cuts of meat, this step is probably optional.

Put the chicken in the crock on top of the oil.

In a small bowl, combine the teriyaki sauce and the ranch dressing. I kept tasting this---the flavor is so bizarre and tasty; I've never had anything like it.

Pour sauce over the top of the chicken. Add the shredded cheese and the crumbled bacon to the crock, getting between the chicken pieces, if you can.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 3-4. The cooking time will depend on how thick your chicken pieces are, and if they are fresh or frozen.

Since I used the tiny breast tenders (frozen) our dinner cooked in only 3 hours on high.____________________________________________________________________________I forgot to make the sauce and it was still great!

Here it is served up with baked patty pan squash, fresh sliced cucumbers and fried green tomatoes.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

This book features his most popular series character, retired L.A. homicide cop, Harry Bosch, but it's also a sequel to his first stand-alone, The Poet (1996). As a favor to the widow to investigate the death of Bosch's colleague and friend Terry McCaleb (of Blood Work and A Darkness More Than Night) Bosch takes on the case and begins looking into Terry's death. Terry had had a heart transplant and was on a lot of meds. He dies of a heart attack while on a long charter on his boat. Terry's wife is suspicious and has his meds checked and, sure enough, some of his meds had been exchanged for placebos. Terry had never given up his cold case interests and Bosch finds his boat loaded with boxes of criminal files. Was someone in those files after McCaleb because he was getting too close? Bosch finds McCaleb's file on The Poet and finds that McCaleb had followed the work of this serial killer and had some clues to what was coming next. Bosch finds help with FBI Agent Rachel Walling and they follow it down.

This was my second Connelly book and I was unable to put it down. A good read. I liked Harry Bosch as a character (although he would be hard to be friends with in a real life relationship, LOL). Connelly keeps him on track and always moving forward with little distraction from the case. Only a few rabbit trails into his relationship with his daughter and ex-wife but that was OK. He writes this book swinging from first person narrative to third person narrative but it worked. I never missed a beat. There was no interruption in my thought process as I read along. And he did keep me reading along!

In spite of his promises to his wife that he'll take a desk job now that his anonymity has been compromised, Mitch doesn't hesitate to tackle another covert mission involving the rescue of an American family being held hostage in the Philippines...And a murky plot to create a Palestinian state. A mysterious operative, "David," plans to assassinate the heads of the major terrorist groups in the region and pin the deaths on Israel, simultaneously creating sympathy for the Palestinian cause while striking a fatal blow against terrorism, which he despises.

These two "capers" are not related. I kind of thought they would be but there were two separate stories in this book. Don't get me wrong, they were both good and I couldn't put the book down but they weren't related except Mitch Rapp is involved.

This was my first Vince Flynn book and he reminds me of Clive Cussler. Good guys vs. bad guys, lots of state of the art technology and a hero that never dies! Go America!

I love urns and vases. I don't know why but I just do and I have a collection of vintage vases. But let's look at garden urns and ways we can use them around our home.

I did a Google search on urns and found these photos. What delightful and imaginative ways to use urns! I think my favorite is this sink! We are used to seeing flowers, plants and topiaries in urns but I loved some of the different ways to use them like making them into tables, using them for fountains, etc.